


The death of all things that are seen and unseen

by Toomanyfandoms99



Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Coda, Episode: s15e16 Drag Me Away (From You), F/M, M/M, The Empty (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toomanyfandoms99/pseuds/Toomanyfandoms99
Summary: Castiel can’t afford to fall apart.  It was why he was up here.  It is a reminder to himself.They are almost at the end of this story, and he couldn’t fall apart.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517966
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	The death of all things that are seen and unseen

**Author's Note:**

> When the stench of the sea and the absence of green,  
> Are the death of all things that are seen and unseen,  
> Not an end, but the start of all things that are left to do.
> 
> -Hozier, “Wasteland, Baby!”

The bitter wind prickles at Castiel’s skin. He remembers when he didn’t used to feel it, didn’t used to soak in the warmth of the sun or the stabbing needles of hail. He used to be too powerful, too godlike to care about a drop of rain or a melting snowflake crystallized in its own unique pattern.

Now, Castiel feels everything, and he wishes that he didn’t. He wishes he could go back, but he also wishes that his captors holding up Heaven on a splintering toothpick would burn and rot in the depths of Rowena’s Hell.

The wind freezes the hairs on every inch of Castiel’s exposed skin. His five o’clock shadow tinges with ice and his knuckles redden with patches of dryness. But he does not make to stand up and leave his bench, staring at the picturesque view that could be gone at any minute, any hour, any day. 

He liked this mountain in the Catskills because it reminds him of Heaven. The parts of Heaven that screamed of growth even whilst surrounded by the peaceful dead. 

Heaven remained up in the sky, but he couldn’t go back there. Too many memories, the bad far outweighing the good. He would look at the rose garden and greenery in the blind man’s Heaven and immediately fall apart.

Castiel can’t afford to fall apart. It was why he was up here. It is a reminder to himself.

They are almost at the end of this story, and he couldn’t fall apart.

A percussive beat bends the air molecules. The invisible atoms freeze and shrivel like prunes drying out on a steaming summer day. The air is cold and dead, the same feeling as standing still inside a deep freezer at a butcher shop.

The silence is pierced with the unmistakable slash of a blade. It slices the air in half at the molecular level, defying the laws and logic of the universe.

She appears, the wielder of the blade. She flies in the provided opening, the rip in space and time. 

Castiel turns away to provide her a semblance of privacy as she creates her form, the body that they were used to seeing on her. He regards the rolling hills and bleak coating of the gray sky. A filmy quality acts as a sheer curtain, obscuring the clouds and sun. It is as if the atmosphere is already preparing, already setting a stage.

She manifests from the dark spots, weaving into smooth skin and curly hair and leather clothes. She is in a sitting position beside him on the concrete bench. Red lipstick purses and chocolate eyes wait on his profile.

Castiel refrains from exhaling in a deep sigh out of his mouth. She wants to ask him why he is here, why he looks at the sky and prays to a nonexistent higher power to save them. He’s a fool for doing it, he knows this fully, but if Dean and Sam Winchester have taught him anything, it is that he should always hold out hope.

That hope may be a sliver of light, an impossible dream, but Castiel hopes anyway. He hopes that Jack will live, Sam will get to marry Eileen, Claire and the rest of the wayward hunter women are safe, the world remains intact, and Dean receives a peaceful end to his life.

That life may not be with Castiel, but it is what Castiel wants for Dean. He wants Dean to be happy. He may not get to have Dean, he may ache for Dean in a way they will never be together, but he will not let his selfishness roadblock Dean’s future.

Castiel tears his gaze from the horizon, the creeping eerie feeling that hangs in the haze. He regards her with tired eyes and a weary heart.

“You still haven’t told them,” Billie considers.

“I did,” Castiel deadpans, “I said that Jack will have to die in order to kill Chuck and Amara.”

Billie’s gaze grows harsh. “You know what I meant.”

Castiel shuts down at the thought, just as he always does. Every time it is brought up or even suggested vaguely, he is back in the darkness. Back in the Empty. 

The entity has threatened to swallow him whole for his entire existence. First in ghost stories when he was a young seraphim. Then when he led his own legion of angel warriors, a battle cry to their reaper who captured those that died on interdimensional fields, massive beings of light rendered useless by the call to oblivion. Again when he became God, became a monster, begging for the end in the aftermath, awakening destitute and powerless and without a home, no friends or family and only himself for company. Even when Jack was born, Castiel had gone from running away from death to asking for it, allowing himself to surrender to an eternity of reliving his infinite mistakes.

And now, the deal with the Empty hangs over him like a shroud. No relief, though Castiel does not want any. If the Empty does not kill him, Jack’s death certainly will. So will the deaths of everyone he has come to care for on Earth.

“Perhaps it is for the best,” Billie sighs, her voice crisping the chilly atmosphere further, “your death would be yet another blow if the Winchesters knew about it. The last thing they need is for their judgment to be clouded more than it is already.”

Castiel conceals his shock at the viewpoint with the bat of his eyelashes. He expected a fight, an insistence that no secrets lie between the soldiers bred to end all conflict in the world, but the part of him that is millennia old is grateful he does not have to waste any of his words.

“We have a more pressing matter, anyway,” Billie informs. “Chuck has destroyed every world except ours.”

That explains why the Catskills are enveloped in such a bleary fog when it is not the type of season for heavy humidity.

“The boys are on the way back to the bunker to await Chuck’s return. Jack knows what he must do,” Billie rises from the bench and looks over her shoulder, “so that just leaves you.”

Castiel arches a brow up at her. “There’s a plan for me too? I’m honored.”

Billie’s lip quirks upwards on one side at the dry sarcasm. “Everyone has a plan. Would you like to know yours, Castiel?”

Castiel sees no choice, so he shrugs. He stands from his perch on the mountains and follows Billie.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
